Nick Jeffers
Big History Project: The Earth
The Early Earth
On my model I showed how the Earth was made of molten lava and hot rocks. The black foam paper is the rock. The red foam paper is the lava on Earth. In the sky there are meteors and information about how the atmosphere was .The Earth was basically this one large landmass of rock with lava coming out of volcanoes and made seas of lava. The volcanoes were formed by plates running into each other and one plate sliding under the other, forcing the top plate upwards making volcanoes and mountains. The volcanoes had explosions and shot volcanic emissions into the atmosphere and eventually the emissions turned into the oceans. The volcanoes ruleed the early Earth, as you can see at http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/ecology/mother-earth-when-volcanoes-ruled-the-world/580. The atmosphere was much different then, and there was no oxygen. The early Earth was very radioactive. It was very radioactive from the supernova that created the Universe, accretion, and pressure. During the time of the early Earth there also were meteors hitting the Earth all the time, which is actually how the Earth formed. Some of this information can be found on universitytoday.com.
After early Earth the time of Pangea formed. Water evaporated and surrounded the Earth forming the first atmosphere. This made a green house effect which helped with the melting of the Earth.
The early Earth was very hot and Earth melted over a long period of time. When the Earth melted it made layers, which made the basic form of Earth. Eventually the water vapor fell to Earth forming the oceans. The Earth settled down until a Mars sized object hit Earth making it like it was before and made steam which formed the atmosphere again. The water fell to Earth again forming the oceans and the moon, which was created from the impact from the Mars sized object, helped balance the Earth and keep it stable. Chemicals in the ocean made the first organisms and they spread all over the Earth. Oxygen eventually took over the atmosphere. When this happened Earth's green house effect went away making the Earth very cold making the "ice age". Then volcanoes came up from the surface and lava came out warming the Earth again. This happened three times. After these times of the Earth being ice it became a stable Earth. Some life forms survived the cold weather. At this time Plants grew and Earth became it's next stage. I got all this information from a video about the early atmosphere and Earth on bighistoryproject.com
http://www.google.com/imgres?um=1&hl=en&safe=off&sa=N&tbo=d&biw=1680&bih=959&tbm=isch&tbnid=R2ts1j7cy1nfOM:&imgrefurl=http://www.universetoday.com/58177/earth-formation/&docid=gIAtd5VuCyQyvM&imgurl=http://ut-images.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/early_earth.jpg&w=400&h=300&ei=IsbTUNXqLOqY2wXU04DABg&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=1&sig=113219220116293164928&page=1&tbnh=134&tbnw=161&start=0&ndsp=16&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0,i:118&tx=101&ty=258
http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/ecology/mother-earth-when-volcanoes-ruled-the-world/580
bighistoryproject.com
